Method and system for long-term archiving CAD data

A long-term archiving system for archiving over a long term various types of CAD data created by various types of CAD programs, the system comprising:

• a rule which is a modification of a standard rule which can convert various types of CAD data created by various types of CAD programs to text-based standard data, the rule being determined such that among items contained in the various types of CAD data, items relating to contents to be archived over a long term are selected, and data obtained through conversion of the selected items are treated as long-term archived data, and the rule containing at least a procedure for designing a converter which converts the selected data items to long-term archived data, and a procedure for designing a viewer which enables display units of various computer systems to display the converted long-term archived data;
• long-term archived data acceptance means for accepting, as registration data, long-term archived data which has been converted from selected CAD data by use of a converter created on the basis of the rule and which has been confirmed to be the same as the original;
• long-term archiving means for storing over a long term the long-term archived data, which has been stored as registration data, together with registration information;
• and
• long-term archived data output means for outputting, in response to a request, the registration data archived in the long-term archiving means while guaranteeing the identity of the output registration data.